finding a brother
by turn out fine
Summary: life: noun \ˈlīf\ like everything else, it works best with a brother at your side. colin and dennis, wwii au, non-linear


warnings: death, blood &war

note: this isn't meant to be in sequential order, it's just a bunch of moments-

also, about colin and denis being on the german's side- i didn't mean to say that they were evil, i just meant for them to be confused and idealistic, and i'm sorry if i didn't portray that well

* * *

Slowly, a small, shoeless boy made his way across the field. Picking his path around bones and broken bodies that laid scattered like forgotten rubbish, he trudged towards one of the lone figures that remained standing. His small, tremulous voice broke the deathly silence.

_"Colin. Colin Creevey. do you know where I can find him?"_

_"Take your pick, they're all the same._" The soldier motioned dejectedly at the blood-stained field.

_"No, Colin. He's going to be sixteen in November. I don't think you get it. He can't be dead, he's my brother!"_ There was a note of pleading in the boy's voice now.

_"He was underage then? I guess it doesn't matter because they all died. Dead, dead, dead."_

The boy abandoned his attempt to talk sense with the soldier and turned around. There were other men to ask, other tents to search. Why would Colin be dead? It was unthinkable.

* * *

Until he was twelve and learned astronomy in school, Dennis believed that the moon hung for him. It was a simple truth of his small world, one that Colin repeated to him every time they went out to look at the stars. The two small boys would lie on the scraggly dead grass of their front yard, in a pool of flickering gaslight. Colin clutched Dennis' small hand protectively in his own and explained how in heaven, every night their mother put up the moon just for them.

To feel like the source of so much light was the most amazing thing in the world, when everyone else seemed to think he only brought darkness. _"Killed his mother in childbirth...drove his father to drink...brother wasting so much time on him...no real talent there."_

* * *

In his hand, he worried a small photograph. It was of the same field, in winter. Snow covered the ground and shabby tents. Feet stuck out of blankets, holes in socks turned blue, and men oiled their guns during the flurry.

Now, in the summer the field looked much the same, only hotter and stickier, the shoddy shoes and flimsy blankets all cast off to one side in a failed attempt to conquer the heat.

The only real difference was the coloring. There was a lot more red then Colin had been able to capture in the black and white photograph. Too much red and too many bodies. Too many people who weren't Colin.

* * *

He stood by the clump of earth that they said held his brother. Kicking it with his foot, he scowled, trying to hold back tears. an officer came up, badges pulling down a uniform that looked more like a symbol of defeat, then anything worth fighting for. The officer looked hardly older then Colin.

(Whoever was controlling the age limit here didn't seem to care much about who's lives they sacrificed.)

The soldier put his hand on Denis' shoulder and he didn't have the energy to shrug it off. Together they stood, looking down at the tightly packed dirt, watering the grave with their tears.

_"Someone you love is buried here, aren't they."_

_"The world."_

_"They tell you that you don't value what you have until it's lost but it's bull. You just never thought that you would lose anything. Boy, you lose _everything_. It all leaves you, you know."_

_"I'm learning."_

* * *

Faster and faster, Dennis walked through the tents of the survivors that lined the field, whirling around, senses in overdrive, chanting to himself. "_ColinColinColin_..."

A fifteen year old should never have to be told by everyone that their only brother is dead. A fifteen year old boy should be plugging his ears to keep out his brother yelling at him, not a bunch of people yelling about his brother. "_DeadDeadDead_..." They don't belong on battlefields, with half of them missing.

No one does.

* * *

_"Heil Hitler." _

_"Heil."_

Dennis wanted to tell them that he had a role model already. His name was Colin and he was Dennis' big brother, the best one in the whole world.

But they thrust the strange man with the handlebar mustache and scary voice at him, to look up to.

They shoved a youth party schedule at him and force fed hate to him. Then one day the new regime turned back and tried to give him Colin. Only it was a different Colin, a Colin who spent all his time thinking about glory and guns and superiority and the smell of freshly ironed uniforms.

The day that the letter came, the solemn mailman ringing the bell, and the crisp paper cutting into his fingers, Denis lost it. He tore the letter up, only his hands weren't listening to his head. Before he knew it, he was sprawled on the floor, heaving sobs wetting the torn letter. The letter of acceptance to the army of the Third Reich.

It was the only time he had ever seen Colin look mad at him.

_"I'm doing this for you, Den, all for you."_

* * *

Colin had all the answers and the ones that he didn't, he could always help Dennis find. After the battle, Dennis had only nightmares, feelings of abandonment and copious amounts of questions.

Right then, he could have used someone to tell him what life is. The only definiton Denis could come up with on his own wasn't right but it was true.

_life: noun \ˈlīf\_

_like everything else, it works best with a brother at your side._

* * *

In the end it was the camera strap and Colin wasn't even in a tent. Dennis tripped over it and fell onto a corpse. He could feel the rough heartbeat, fighting to break free of its grey ribcage. The skin of Colin's face was stretched unnaturally tightly around his glassy dead eyes. Denis felt disgusted with himself for letting out a shudder.

Dennis couldn't tell whether Colin was alive or dead because the tears were falling now, too thick and fast to see anything and he couldn't deal with the grotesque twitching anymore.

Quickly, a small, broken boy ran across the field, stumbling over debris, ash rising like snow, resting on his pinched face. He was going to find his brother.

* * *

i'm not happy with this but it is what it is, i tried.

quidditch league, round eleven


End file.
